Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/455

 io s. x. NOV. 7, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

375

times been discovered. Dr. Powel in his learned annotations on Giraldus's Itinerary, says Camden,

"assures us it was riot only the opinion of some Antiquaries, that the ancient Mediolanum was seated where the village of Meivod now stands ; but also that the same village and places adjoining /afforded in his time several such remarkable Monu- ments, as made it evident, that there had been formerly a considerable town at that place."

One comment of Camden is particularly striking. He says that

"about a mile from the Church there is a place call'd Erw'r Forth, i.e. the Gate-acre, which is sup- posed to have taken its name from the Gates of the -old City ; and in the grounds adjoyning to this village, Causeys, Foundations of Buildings, Floors .and Harths are often discover'd by Labourers ; but whether any such Monuments, as we may safely conclude to be Roman (as Coins, Urns, Inscriptions, Ac.) are found at this place I must leave to fur- ther enquiry." Gibson's 'Camden,' 1722, vol. ii. cols. 781-2.

The Rev. H. M. Scarth in his ' Roman Britain ' says :

" A road also from Caerleon penetrated into the interior of Wales, and is traced to Caer Sws, a fortified station, and thence to Mediolanum (Claud Coch), where it meets the road from Urconium to ."Segontium."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

10, Royal Crescent, Holland Park Avenue.

This was probably Milan. Coryat tells that when the place was being enlarged by Bellovesus,

" a certaine wilde Sow that came forth of an olde ruinous house very early in the morning, hapried to meet some of those that were set aworke about the building of the city. This Sow had halfe her body covered with hard bristly haire as other Pigges are, and the other halfe with very soft and white wooll : which portentum Bellovesus took for a very happy and ominous token, so that he caused the city to be called Mediolanum from the half e-woolled Sow." ' Crudities,' vol. i. p. 241 (MacLehose's edition).

ST. SWITHIN.

According to Deschamps's ' Dictionnaire de Geographic,' the Mediolanum in England may be Ternhill, near Dray ton (Shrews- bury) or Mayland (according to Cluver and Reichard), or Calcar (according to other geographers). L. L. K.

MB. ROBERT GUY ought to extend his Tesearches to Milan. JOSEPH S. HANSOM.

BRIEFS IN 1742 (10 S. x. 330). According to the best account of these documents, viz~ Bewes's ' Church Briefs,' every one of the places mentioned was assisted by collections ^t different places, as described in the references, which are Smith's 'Bygone Briefs'

at St. Margaret's, Westminster ; ' Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Associa- tion,' 1893 ; * Register Book of Baptisms of Kaye Street, Liverpool,' now in Somerset House ; and ' Accounts of Robert Hodgson,' in Salt Library. In the case of Whittington, Salop, there is an additional reference to The Reliquary, xxvi. 223.

There is a very fine collection published as being collected ' Upon a Brief ' at Chatham Kent, where each of the places named is mentioned, that is, if Hornby is not a mis- take for Formby.

Many topographical books contain items of briefs collected locally. There are several in the fine volumes of the 'History of Northumberland' edited by Bateson and Hodgson. AYEAHR.

[L. L. K. also refers to Be we s book.]

" BETTER AN OLD MAN'S DARLING THAN A YOUNG MAN'S SLAVE " (10 S. x. 310). The wording of the proverb in ' The Miser's Daughter ' was certainly not due to Harrison Ainsworth. It is found in Swift's * Polite Conversation,' Dialogue I. Miss Notable, searching her pockets for her thimble, brings out a nutmeg :

Neverout. Oh ! Miss, have a Care ; for if you carry a Nutmeg in your pocket, you'll certainly be married to an old Man.

Miss. Well, and if I ever be married, it shall be to an old Man; they always make the best Hus- bands ; and it is better to be an old Man's Darling, than a young Man's Warling." ' Miscellanies, vol. ix. (1751), p. 198.

But it is still older than this. Camden ('Remaines,' p. 293, ed. 5, 1636) gives ' Better be an old man's darling, than a yong man's warling." EDWARD BENSLY.

' Bohn's Handbook of Proverbs ' has from Ray's collection " Better be an old man's darling than a young man's snarling," the snarling being, as I suppose, the victim of his fault-finding. ST. SWITHIN.

The older form seems to be " Better be an old man's darling than a young man's warling." This is in Hey wood's ' Proverbs ' (1562). Clark's ' Parcemiologia ' (1639) has " Wordling."

It also occurs in 'Ram Alley' (1611), Act II. sc. i., p. 303 of Hazlitt's ' Dodsley.' The note to this runs: "The Scots say ' a young man's Wonderling.' "

Hazlitt, ' English Proverbs,' &c. (p. 90 of ed. of 1882), gives the Portuguese form as " Mas v le viejo que me houre, que galan quo me ssombre." A. COLLINGWOOD LEE. Waltham Abbey, Essex.